Obxd synthesizer

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I think the GUI is great. Perfectly functional and nice to look at.

Sorry I haven't followed the whole convo, but when the new parameters get added to the GUI, will there be a way to load presets too if our hosts doesn't load banks?

thanks, Echos...2Dat has not mentioned anything about a preset handling function in the new version, sadly.
but we can keep asking!

I thought about it. It's doable, but it will consume a lot of space for new controls: preset load, bank load, preset switching buttons, etc..

You could always make the GUI bigger

All in all, this is a very, very, good synth with lots of great patches. A built in preset browser with the huge collection of presets compiled a few months back would really be a great update.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Or even no button at all (a simple right-click on any space free of element to open a menu).

That would be a bit annoying in practice though. Next/Previous buttons are handy. But I guess if there would just be a simple load bank button that would be enough since it seems even hosts without the ability to load fxb can browse the preset of a loaded bank. This is how it is in Bigwig for example. It shows the presets in a list of the loaded bank but can't load banks.

[Breeze]

Hey Layzer, way too much glare on that one, but otherwise a nice start.

@Layzer: I agree. It also brings back bad memories of frustratingly trying to read knobs on stage when the glare was too intense right in the middle of a performance... I'm wondering if it's a monitor calibration issue. I found the variance of the metal versions you posted a few months back too intense as well.

BTW, hi gang... funny to see the old crew rallying...

[EvilDragon]

Yep, way too much glare, the blue is too striking and hurts the eyes.

[2DaT]

This one isn't looking harsh

[EvilDragon]

Yup, that's a pretty sexy one!

[fmr]

This one isn't looking harsh

Yeah, a GUI inspired in this one would be good for computer. Very readable, and without any colour problems.

[fmr]

BTW, hi gang... funny to see the old crew rallying...

Yep, seems like things are getting warmer, again

[SeeGee]

An update to my previous post regarding loading patch banks in Fruity Loops 11:

I updated Fruity Loops to the most recent version (11.1.1), and it appears that patch banks now work properly with the 64-bit VST, so it looks like it was a FL problem. Also had a chance to play with the plugin itself, and it sounds great.

[Breeze]

Yep, way too much glare, the blue is too striking and hurts the eyes.

This one isn't looking harsh :

Yeah, a GUI inspired in this one would be good for computer. Very readable, and without any colour problems.

IMO there are two important things in plugin GUI design: visibility and accessibility.

For visibility, size is most important; this is a tough on for a lot of devs but many are getting better at implementing multiple sizes (U-he is king). I have a 30" screen with a good color gamut and OBXD is fine, though higher res screens may make this an issue in the future. Color contrast is primary and important in the measure that it impacts visibility. An example of poor contrasting color choices IMO is Cableguys' FilterShaper3; the dark low-contrast look sucks all the fun out of working with it. Apart from contrast, the problem with the color choices themselves is that they're very personal. I've said it before: I don't like the blue we have, but as it doesn't impact these two parameters, I live with it and look with my ears. Despite my original enthusiasm, I agree with EvilDragon: the original OB-Xa look will impact visibility. But I really like 2DaT's suggestion: it seems to kill these two birds with one stone AND harkens back to OB design. Brilliant! Plus white contains all the other colours, so it should please everyone!

Accessibility is all about speed of execution. I think Layzer and the gang did a great job with parameter placement and labelling on the last release. As long as everything continues in that direction, we should have a great V2.

And by the way, I hope we can keep our future discussions here relatively impersonal and on-point. There have been some tangential personal affronts in the past that only served to take us out of fruitful discussion and searches, and worse: make short relevant comments be lost in a sea of back and forth ego-based rhetorics...

[Echoes in the Attic]

Oh yeah white FTW.

Like the Arturia SEM V. Very nice indeed.

[BlackWinny]

Looks good, but personally I never liked the look of the OB-Xa, because those blue stripes over black hurt my eyes (I have eye problems with colour - I am almost blind to red, but very sensitive to blue). BlackWinny also has somehow a similar problem - let's see what he says. But personally I would rather prefer the soft grey of OB-X. Maybe without that light reflection, and with a rough dark grey (or light black, if you prefer) surface (like rugged paint)?

Yes, my eyesight impairment is called "protanomaly" which from birth prevents me to correctly distinguish the nuances in the longest wavelengths of the chromatic range (the red extremity). For me and all the persons having this problem (about 6 millions persons in Europe, almost all males because it is a genetic problem on the chromosome X) all the lights having a red color in little surfaces appear as dark and even sometimes totally black, leading to the total impossibility to tell if they are on or off, present or absent, and even simply detectable. But this impairment leads also to a strong lack of perception of the contrasts among all the colors of the spectrum (an issue which progresses from low in the short wavelengths to very strong in the long wavelengths but exist all along the spectrum), and the better the contrasts are, the better the perception (and readability) is, whatever the colors. When reading red LCD digits for example... it means the very great difficulty to distinguish if this and that segment of the digit is on or off, so... a quasi-impossibility to read with reliability numbers and letters in LCD displays when they are twice red and small.

This physiological disease exists also for the other extremity of the spectra, the blue extremity, but much, much, much more rare. That's why to provide the same optimal ability for everybody the industrial makers have recently understood that it is greatly preferable to sell LCD displays in green or in blue. And nowadays (since the mid 90's) all the makers of electronic devices build less and less red displays and more and more blue and green displays (or provide the choice when they can do it without extra investment). The red displays will tend to almost disappear in the next years in reason of this very incapacitating problem which concerns about 6 millions of persons in the Europe (and around the same percentage in the rest of the world), a problem which has been taken very, very seriously by the makers because it is a real trouble not only for security but also for many things in the life (and for example by a very great difficulty to distinguish correctly in these sets [0/2/5/8], [5/6], [1/7], etc. in a LCD display and the same to tell if a red led is on or off). And beware, it is the same with the grey nuances! It means a same problem to read dark grey numbers on light grey background in many digital displays! Example on OBXD...

The issues with the red colour is the main problem in protanomaly. But there is also the other problem, existing with almost all the other eyesight issues: the perception of contrasts among all the other colours. Protanomaly or not, the researches in biology of the vision during the last twenty years have clearly shown with strong evidence that for everybody the best perception of elements on a surface is always when the elements are clear or bright on a dark background. We had always thought the opposite in all the last centuries before these last twenty years and these researches have clearly shown with statistics on the population and direct measurements on the neurological activities (I'm biologist) that we were totally wrong. That's why many things have changed these last years in the industry, in the design of the objects of everyday, in the design of the front panel of electronic features, in the design of professional websites, etc.

And I consider my eyesight impairment, the protanomaly, as a minor impairment when I think of all those persons who have a glaucome (by the way, do you all know that the singer Bono has recently announced that his habit to wear sun glasses is not snobbery but due to a strong glaucome which progresses along the years?) and are totally forbidden to use almost all the plugins! It is really a strong problem this habit to make plugins which are impossible to use for many people simply because the accent is put on the artistic side of the GUI design instead of on the best readability for everybody even for the people having strong eyesight. I have a musician friend (we work together on common projects) who has a glaucome so strong that he is quasi-blind when he wants to use VST plugins, almost all of them having GUI's very badly thought to be used by really everybody and not only by perfect eyesight persons. I consider (and many eyesight impaired persons like me) as a total "perfect eyesight egoism" from the developers who have an excellent eyesight and don't care at all that 20% of the musicians are totally forbidden to use these plugins. About 50% of the population (so about 50% of the musicians) wear glasses, and more than 20% of the population (so more 20% of the musicians) have one of the very strong eyesight impairments (strong longsightedness, strong myopia, strong color impairments, strong contrast impairments, difficulties with serif fonts or minuscule letters...). It's not negligible! 20%! And this count progresses year after year for several reasons due to new society habits but also due to the slowly increasing number of aged persons (remaining intellectually totally valid and able to compose and play music)! 20% of strong eyesight impaired persons today in the world! But it remains totally neglected by the designers and developers of our software plugins! It means that they don't care at all of these more than 20% of impaired persons and prefer to give up these 20%. When all the persons having perfect eyesight have the total choice of 100% of the "catalog of plugins" today two musicians of ten can't easily (or can't at all) use these GUI's and must choose in a very short, very limited choice of plugins! And yet... it would be perfectly possible to make all the GUI's as beautiful as now though adapted to 100% of the musicians and not only 80%.

Almost all the plugins are very badly thought visually. Sizes too small, contrasts too weak, colors too badly chosen, letters even often unreadable... And too many plugins having even not the GUI's externalized and skinnable, even when it's not so difficult to externalize them.

We of course know that it is very difficult for someone having no problem to put himself at the place of an impaired person... but it's been so long, so many years that we alert about these issues in the GUI's which condemn the strong eyesight impaired persons (20% of the humankind so 20% of the musicians) to not use them...

And about the hardware emulations... honestly... is it really so much important to have GUI's which reflect the colors of the emulated original hardwares when in fact the most important is the sound?

[layzer]

thanks for the feedback on the OBX-a skin, funky, breeze, dragon, winny, Fmr... i tamed down the glare and dulled and gave the blue stripes a more turquois tint. i realize this oberheim design may NOT be everyones cupa, i started it mostly for myself and maumoondog. as we both got a soft spot for the OBX-a black & blue design. it is therefore a side-skin project. i'll be concentrating more on the original OBX "baby blue" gui in the next few weeks working with 2Dat on the arangement of the new features controls....including....are ya ready? PRESET HANDLING!

[layzer]

This one isn't looking harsh

i like this! should we make this the new V2 OBXD gui design inspiration, 2DAT?

[DonHepe]